Aware of the site’s problematic early reputation, LadBible attempted to redefine the definition of a “lad” to mean a caring individual who looks after their friends’ mental health and worries about plastic waste. It produced material featuring mainstream celebrities, such as an infamous video of Dame Judi Dench rapping with Lethal Bizzle, in addition to building a substantial female readership. She told BBC Radio 5 live the site was growing by 250,000 followers a week and getting 3.5 million “likes”, shares and comments on its media every day. “It has changed a lot over the past couple of years, which does seem to be a model for a lot of companies – you start off by getting some kind of stranglehold on the market, then you can make yourself acceptable to a wider demographic.” These charges are rejected by the Lad Bible’s marketing director, Mimi Turner, in an interview with BBC Radio 5 live. The LADbible project started in January 2012 when the channel published their first Facebook post which achieved over 75,000 interactions.

While Ms Turner is happy to spread the word, co-founders Alex Solomou and Arian Kalantari prefer to keep a low profile. The LAD Bible is a mixture of video and photos, some of it posted by users, the rest harvested from the four corners of the internet. They are hosted on a website called the Lad Bible and are being shared in their thousands by its 17 million followers, across Facebook, Twitter and Reddit.

Christian Horner has released a statement responding to alleged leaked texts following his investigation of ‘inappropriate behaviour’. Today’s headlines and latest breaking news from the UK and around the world. LADbible is owned by The LADbible Group Ltd and generates revenue through online advertising. Now LadBible aims to expand by snapping up websites in new areas such as food, and on untapped platforms such as Instagram and TikTok. While BuzzFeed turned a profit for the first time since 2014 last year, LadBible has lofty targets. Revenue is expected to rise 73pc to £52m this year, as profits triple to £16.2m.

LadBible aims to beat BuzzFeed in viral media battle

If you use Facebook, the chances are that you have seen the material – videos of Rambo-themed stag parties, mobile discos paraded through supermarket aisles, or a man changing a nappy wearing a gas mask. LadBible last month announced it had made a half-year pre-tax loss of £1.9m, which it mainly attributed to the costs of hiring more staff. This recent expansion has made the sudden redundancies even more surprising for employees. The Manchester-based company blamed the state of the economy, which it variously attributed to the war in Ukraine, the hangover from Covid lockdowns and growing price inflation caused by “political instability”. To make matter worse, because salaries at Unilad were low it was easy for LADbible to poach staff – but woe betide anyone looking to make the jump to their competitor.

1. “So actually we have this window of time where we can bring people back to life and the experiences that they have given us is an indication of what it is like to go through death,” he said.
2. Yet the story surrounding the social media hit-maker carries a sense of deja vu.
3. The publisher has recently delved into topics including the cost of living crisis and university tuition fees.
4. While Ms Turner is happy to spread the word, co-founders Alex Solomou and Arian Kalantari prefer to keep a low profile.
5. It is not alone among British media companies who fear that advertising income could be cut in the coming months if the UK enters a recession and companies slash their marketing budgets.

LadBible is working with advisers at Zeus Capital on a £360m London Stock Market listing, which will give institutional investors a slice of the booming online advertising market through a £30m raise. The LadBible co-founder Arian Kalantari, also 30, has cashed in shares worth £3m and retains a £10m stake in the business. Other early investors who stand to benefit include Mahmud Kamani, the owner of Debenhams and co-founder of the online fast fashion website Boohoo.

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LadBible believes it can overcome the challenge with little fuss because of its massive reach across each of the main social platforms. Yet, as BuzzFeed has proven, the tougher audience to win over may be investors. Its executives believe a profit margin of around 30pc – three times that of BuzzFeed’s – is sustainable. Comparing its social media reach to its rivals, LadBible is second only to Buzzfeed with the pair respectively holding 262m and 324m. Early trading in its shares pushed the market value of the business as high as £400m. By comparison, the US-based BuzzFeed is worth about $770m (£580m) after its share price fell sharply following this month’s listing on New York’s Nasdaq stock exchange.

“I thought it was a way to get my name out there as a writer,” he says. “Obviously, retrospectively it was an awful decision.” Did he really not see any of Unilad’s other content at the time? “I hadn’t really read over a lot of the content there,” Andy stammers. Under Bentley, Harrington and Quinlan’s leadership, Unilad had grown from an obscure Facebook page into a new media success story. By 2016, Unilad had 11.5 million likes on Facebook and was one of the platform’s most engaged-with pages, rivalled only by its nemesis, LADbible.

During this period, as administrators sought a buyer for Unilad – before longtime rivals LADbible eventually swooped in – the rumour mill went into overdrive. Quinlan sent an email to staff, asking them to share statements online in support of Unilad. “John [Quinlan] was saying that the administrators were corrupt and he was trying to get everyone to share this email he’d written on LinkedIn,” says Sara. Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, The Guardian, BBC, Huffington Post and the Independent covered the story, situating it within the bubbling ferment of “lad culture” on university campuses. If you want to find out who the real lads (the people out there who comment, like and share Lad Bible articles) you’d be better off reading this YouGov profile of the British Lad.

Advertising rates are much higher in the US and LadBible already has an enormous reach in the country thanks to users who consume content produced for its existing UK and Australian audiences. However, the US is a notoriously tricky place for overseas media outlets to expand. “LADbible was better forex broker listings at diversifying away from Facebook than Unilad,” explains independent media analyst Alex DeGroote. Besides expanding their reach on other social platforms, LADbible also launched a creative agency, Joyride, in 2016, and a lucrative, long-term branded partnership with Smirnoff in 2018.

A self-described website “for when you are bored in the library”, Patridge uploaded much of the content to Unilad 1.0 himself (Partridge did not respond to multiple interview requests). “So actually we have this window of time where we can bring people back to life and the experiences that they have given us is an indication of what it is like to go through death,” he said. Dr Parnia studied more than 100 cases of cardiac arrest survivors, in cases where the patients technically died before coming back to life, and many of them had bizarre experiences to share from their time on death’s door.

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But, while everyone has their own ideas around what happens once a person passes away, some scientists have their own theories around life after death and it’s truly fascinating. It’s best not think too hard about it all or you risk giving yourself a bit of a headache. From cold cases and documentaries to current events, we have all the latest true crime news and stories.

Viral videos spanning “mesmerising laser tattoo removals” to “using breast milk to make jewellery” have kept audience numbers growing. Yet, filling the void left by lad mags such as Zoo and Nuts has led to controversy. Still, Solomou has certainly secured rapid growth since dreaming up the concept while studying business management at the University of Leeds 12 years ago. For Alice Pickthall, of forex etoro review Enders Analysis, the challenge lies in amassing a big enough business to remain resilient to potential turbulence in the advertising market – but she remains cautious of Ladbible’s long-term prospects. “It’s a truly symbiotic relationship – typically 55/45 in our favour in terms of revenue, which shows the importance of LadBible and our other titles in driving traffic to the social platforms.

How did The Lad Bible become so successful?

Staff were told the redundancies, which follow a recent hiring spree, were necessary to “put ourselves in a better position when markets have settled and economic growth returns”. By signing up, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy & to receive electronic communications from Vice Media Group, which may include marketing promotions, advertisements and sponsored content. At this point, according to Newswhip, in August of 2018 Unilad was still Facebook’s fourth tickmill review biggest publisher, bigger even than MailOnline or the New York Times. One time, someone in the video team dragged a confetti cannon onto the first floor balcony, which looked out over reception, and set it off. “It scared the shit out of the receptionist,” Sara laughs. “It didn’t ever feel like I was going to work. It was always fun. There were times where projects would get you stressed or you’d argue with someone, but 90 percent of the time I absolutely loved it.”

“Our high engagement with the hard to reach youth audience drives traffic on their platforms and subsequent monetisation opportunities that result from brand engagement,” he adds. Facebook’s changes to the newsfeed algorithm – which would have significantly decreased the number of people seeing their content – certainly didn’t help. Like in many media organisations, there was a disconnect between the editorial and production teams, who were responsible for commissioning and producing original content, and the people in finance responsible for paying them. This meant that as the situation worsened, in August and September of 2018, it was business as usual. Eventually he stopped, because he worried the freelance staff would never be paid.